Iraq War 2003

Two car bombs exploded near Iraq's Interior Ministry early today, a police source said, killing at least five policemen a day after two similar bombs killed 12 Iraqi troops in the capital. Today's attacks took place at a police checkpoint just outside the ministry, the source said. On Wednesday, a car explosion that killed eight soldiers at an Iraqi army base was followed an hour later by a second blast that killed four more at a checkpoint.

Brazen insurgent attacks flared from one end of this nation to the other, authorities said Monday, targeting Iraqi security forces north of the capital and polling places in the southern city of Basra. Militants also kidnapped the Catholic archbishop of the northern city of Mosul. The attacks across Iraq killed at least 28 Iraqi police and soldiers.

At least 23 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed in a fresh round of attacks Tuesday as interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged that parts of the country were too lawless to take part in the upcoming national election. Preparations for the landmark vote have deteriorated in several areas, particularly the western province of Al Anbar and the area around Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, as some election officials have resigned under threat.

A car bomb exploded in southwestern Baghdad today outside a mosque where Shiites were celebrating the Eid al-Adha holiday, killing at least six people and wounding at least 29, Iraqi police said. An Interior Ministry source said the toll was expected to rise. The explosion outside the al-Taf mosque was the second attack on a Shiite mosque in Baghdad this week. No one was hurt in the earlier blast. Attacks on Shiites have increased in the run-up to scheduled Jan. 30 national elections.

Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan and 26 other activists were found guilty of protesting without a permit near the White House. They were each ordered to pay $75 in fines and court costs, but Sheehan's lawyer said he planned to appeal the verdict. "We weren't demonstrating," Sheehan said. The defendants contended that they were trying to deliver petitions to the White House calling for an end to the war in Iraq, but found no one willing to accept them.

With his approval ratings slipping at home, President Bush on Monday flew overseas for the second time this month -- but not before taking a parting shot at critics of his Iraq policy. Bush, who arrives in Japan this morning for a four-nation Asia swing, used a refueling stop in Alaska to accuse Democrats of "playing politics" in their accusations that the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

IF the debate over the war in Iraq now raging across our front pages and airwaves proves nothing else, it already has demonstrated that this administration believes the people's attention span can be measured in nanoseconds and that memory has the shelf life of fresh bread. Take, for example, this week's astonishingly revelatory public statements by Vice President Dick Cheney and Porter J.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has moved toward completing its long-awaited investigation of the Bush administration's prewar assertions about Iraq, with three of five sections nearly finished, the committee's chairman said Tuesday. Seeking to quell controversy over the pace of the inquiry, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) for the first time provided details and a partial timeline for completing the investigation, which has been underway for more than two years.

A German spy chief and his agents assured members of Parliament that they did not help the United States pick out bombing targets during the invasion of Iraq, but failed to halt demands for an inquiry. Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, told Parliament's foreign affairs committee that German intelligence gave the United States information only on civilian sites to avoid in bombing raids, members of the committee said.

As President Bush prepares for next week's State of the Union address, he faces widespread discontent over his job performance and the nation's direction that could threaten his party in the 2006 election, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. In the survey, 43% of Americans said they approved of Bush's performance as president -- his weakest showing ever in a Times poll.